


I Know a 'Spectable Old Gentleman

by gypsydancergirl (hauntedlittledoll)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Random Literary References for the Win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-04
Updated: 2010-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-14 00:52:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/gypsydancergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel happens upon a powerful young boy on the coast of Australia.  There's potential here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know a 'Spectable Old Gentleman

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens.

Gabriel explored the coast of Australia with a forced laziness.  For all his years spent wandering the earth, he had never had reason to visit here.  Gabriel wasn’t about to be rushed by something as silly and inconsequential as Winchester-induced guilt.  This whole vacation-within-a-vacation was supposed to be a mood pick-me-up.

So here he was, wandering the coastline in ankle-deep mild surf and wet sand . . . along the edge of the strongest notice-me-not barrier that Gabriel had ever seen on this plane of existence.

His curiosity got the better of him.

Gabriel hadn’t spent centuries posing as a trickster for nothing.  A brief sojourn as a bird fooled the warding, and he bypassed the barriers easily.  Whoever had created them had done so to keep out human-sized threats, and must be pretty naïve to discount smaller forms of danger.

That makes the child who sat alone in the dead-center of the warding somewhat easier to understand and accept.

Gabriel approached calmly at a slow ambling pace, brushing off the brief and tentative discouragements.  The boy was rather determinedly trying to ignore the archangel’s approach as he worked on his sand castle.  The attempts to divert him grew firmer, but Gabriel was thousands of years old, and the child was young and inexperienced.

“Hey, kiddo,” Gabriel greeted casually, taking another bite of his chocolate bar.  “You like **Snickers**?”

“I know better than to take candy from strangers,” the boy stared fixedly at his handiwork.

“Wasn’t offering,” Gabriel countered.  “You could always make one of your own.”

The boy finally looked up warily out of big dark eyes.

Gabriel grinned in victory and crouched across from the child.  “You got another shovel?”

“Can you make one of your own?” the boy returned cautiously.

In reply, Gabriel snapped his fingers and held up a bright red shovel indented with a cartoon octopus.  “This castle needs a moat,” the archangel excused himself digging into the sand on his side of the castle.

He had finished digging half the moat by the time the kid began to help half-heartedly.

“My name’s Gabriel.”

“Jesse.”  The kid was watching him from under too-long bangs.  “You’re an angel.”  It wasn’t a question.  Gabriel shrugged.  “You’re a lot bigger than the other one.”

“Huh,” Gabriel cocked his head to the side.  “And just which of my little brothers and sisters did you have the misfortune of running into, kiddo?”

“I don’t know his name, but his eyes were blue and he wore a trench coat,” Jesse had stopped working and stared openly once more.  “I didn’t like him.  He tried to kill me.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” Gabriel nodded agreeably.  “That’s Castiel.  Try not to hold it against him; he’s somewhat confused right now.”

“I’m a bad thing,” Jesse pointed out.

“I know what you are,” Gabriel shrugged.  “And you’re still human.  Every one of you sins, and you can’t exactly help being born that way; it’s a pretty old curse.  That doesn’t make you better or worse than the rest of them.  You’ve still got choices.  Free will is all the rage these days,” Gabriel grumbled.  “You do the right thing, and then nobody’s got any right to try killing you.”

“What if I do the wrong thing?” the kid asked solemnly, innocent questioning in his eyes.

“Then I’ll have to take care of you, Jesse,” Gabriel explained seriously, pausing to meet the child’s eyes.  “And I really don’t want to do that, kiddo, so be good.”

Jesse nodded thoughtfully.  “Okay.”  He smiled at the archangel, and snapped his fingers to acquire the suggested-treat of earlier.  Gabriel grinned.

Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery after all.

_". . . and I know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change . . ."_

_\- The Artful Dodger_


End file.
